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Ilvermorny Origins
From a humble stone cottage built by an Irish immigrant to a soaring castle of magic, the story of Ilvermorny’s 19th-century boom exposes how the school's rapid expansion ignited a dangerous clash between ancient Native American magic, European wizarding traditions, and the ruthless industrialization of the No-Maj world.
Part of my design process includes pulling inspiration from various eras to help better inform conceptual world-building. For this project--inspired by the world-building of Hogwarts Legacy and subsequent material described by J.K. Rowling on the Harry Potter website--I referenced clothes, architecture, vehicles, and interior designs that would've been popular or in development in the United States in the late 1800s.
Early student uniform exploration.
The castle drew inspiration from early Tudor style neo-classical Georgian architecture.
This double-decker coach-bus design was loosely inspired by vehicles that were found in America in the early 1900s.
It's important to explore various floor plans before settling on a shape and tone for a space.
Below are some of my thumbnails, exploring various parts of the Ilvermorny castle and the charms classroom.
Thumbnailing using the three-value method and exploring comps with photo bashing is also an important aspect of my workflow and problem solving.
For this concept, I was exploring early locations and cinematic range within the world of American magic and the environments that may be informed by wizards during the turn of the 19th century.
Composite
Final Render
Visual world-building would not be complete without capturing moments of story. The purpose of this painting is to communicate an aspect of plot as a key painting to a larger narrative scheme that might occur within a sequence of animation within a video game or movie.
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